Locus for Retail: Enabling Convenient, Flexible, and Predictable Customer Delivery Options

Convenience and ease are the pillars of great engagement, and AI can supercharge them all.
– David Clarke, Chief Experience Officer, PwC

This quote hits the bullseye on what retail businesses need to win in today’s marketplace. While cutting logistics costs is crucial, but implementation in of itself does not guarantee or sustain the customer base that businesses expect.

According to PwC’s research on the future of customer experience, one-third of customers will leave a brand after just one unpleasant experience, and over 92% will abandon a company after two or three negative interactions.

From fulfillment to user experience on the website, a few negative interactions can significantly impact Net Promoter Score (NPS), Customer Lifetime Value (CLV), revenue retention rates, and repeat customers.

The only way to reduce the instances and likelihood of poor delivery experiences is by focusing on making every delivery convenient, flexible, and predictable. Is there a way to do this without compromising on cost-efficiency and profitability?

The answer is a definite yes. This requires retail businesses to invest in technologies like the Locus platform, which offers solutions to make every delivery convenient, flexible, and predictable.

Before diving into how Locus enables retail businesses to achieve this, it is critical to understand the stages of customer experience in order fulfillment logistics.

Three Stages for Enabling Convenient, Flexible, and Predictable Deliveries in Order Fulfillment

For deliveries to be convenient, flexible, and predictable, retailers must ensure a consistently exceptional customer experience across three stages of order fulfillment: Pre-Fulfillment, Fulfillment, and Post-Fulfillment.

Pre-Fulfillment

Pre-Fulfillment is the stage where the customer places the order, and it gets ready for fulfillment. During this stage, the customer selects the time slot for the order, provides delivery instructions, and receives the Expected Time of Arrival (ETA). This stage involves inventory management (stock availability status), order processing, order tracking, and customer communication. Effective pre-fulfillment sets the stage for a delightful customer experience through fulfillment.

Fulfillment

Fulfillment is the stage where the business picks, packs, sorts, and ships the orders. This phase is critical as it determines the timely and accurate deliveries. Real-time communication with customers through tracking page links and timely alerts on order progress is essential to ensure that orders reach customers at their preferred time.

Post-Fulfillment

Post-Fulfillment concerns the processes, operations, and activities that occur after the order is dispatched, shipped, and delivered. It primarily focuses on customer satisfaction issues post-delivery. Key aspects include:

• Delivery confirmation of completed deliveries
• Customer feedback
• Returns management
• Post-delivery customer support
• Performance evaluation and analysis

By focusing on these three stages, retailers can enhance the overall delivery experience, ensuring convenience, flexibility, and predictability of fulfillment for their customers.

To ensure such consistently exceptional customer experience across their order fulfillment, retailers must invest in tech platforms. These tech platforms make a huge world of difference in making deliveries to destinations and deliveries to customers.

Locus Way for Retail: How Locus’ Logistics Platform Helps Businesses Enable Convenient, Flexible and Predictable Fulfillment

To serve customers effectively and efficiently, retail businesses must not only be on time for deliveries but also cater to customers at their preferred times. More importantly, customers should have control over their delivery experience, including the ability to schedule pickups, returns, cancellations, and replacement orders. This can be best managed through effective time slot management.

Locus, a logistics tech platform, offers a critical feature called Delivery-Linked Checkout, which enables operational teams to provide customers with multiple time slots for deliveries and returns, intelligently allocating resources. This core feature ensures every delivery is convenient, flexible, and predictable for customers.

Here’s a breakdown of how Locus achieves this:

Fulfilling Orders at Multiple Delivery Windows

Providing customers with time slot options simplifies delivery planning and scheduling for retail businesses. Locus’ Delivery-Linked Checkout feature syncs customer-preferred time slots with existing vehicle capacities, ensuring efficient fleet utilization and high First Attempted Delivery Rates (FADR). The customer-preferred time slots reduce the likelihood of missed deliveries and the costs associated with it.

Enable Premium and Sustainable Delivery Slots

Locus enables retailers to leverage dynamic pricing for delivery schedules with premium time slots. The surcharge from premium time slot deliveries amplifies revenue potential from loyal customers. For eco-friendly deliveries, Locus offers green time slots and carbon-efficient route plans, attracting environmentally-aware consumers seeking sustainable options. This helps the firm serve their premium customers and ecologically-conscious customers without breaking their profitability.

Instantaneous Order Confirmation

Locus provides instant order updates and enables customers to pick up orders at their convenience. This helps businesses meet customer expectations by fulfilling orders on the same day while eliminating delivery costs, ensuring a seamless and efficient customer experience.

End-to-End Visibility in All Stages of Order Fulfillment

Locus’ robust tracking features keep customers informed at all stages of the order delivery through intelligent and proactive alerts like SMS, emails, or push notifications. This empowers customers to track timely updates of in-store pickups and outsourced deliveries, ensuring they stay informed and engaged throughout the process.

Accommodate Last-Minute Reschedule Requests

DLC provides a centralized dashboard that helps internal operational teams monitor deliveries. This enables them to respond immediately to customer requests, such as rescheduling or canceling orders, bringing flexibility to the delivery experience.

Post – Purchase Flexibility

Locus enables customers to select when, where, and how they want to receive their deliveries, offering insights on alternate pickup locations and product availability. This post-purchase flexibility for returns and exchanges helps operational teams eliminate reverse logistics costs, enhancing efficiency and customer satisfaction.

Optimize ETAs Using Intelligent Insights

Locus enables businesses to analyze delays in order fulfillment and deliveries, helping identify opportunities for faster time-to-fulfillment. This allows businesses to provide customers with more accurate delivery Expected Time of Arrival (ETA), enhancing overall customer satisfaction.

The Locus Impact

Locus has solved complex logistics problems for some of the world’s top enterprises, including Croma, Lulu Group International, Landmark Group, Nestle, and more. The results are tangible and reflected in impressive numbers.

• Carbon Emissions Saved: Locus has offset 12 million tonnes of CO2 emissions.
• Logistics Costs Saved: Locus has helped businesses save $288 million in transit costs.

Often, businesses struggle to ensure a delightful customer experience because they invest too much time and effort manually into logistics, which could be better spent strategizing and optimizing operations.

If logistics is consuming much of your time, effort, and money that could be invested elsewhere, it’s time to rethink your approach. Locus has helped businesses worldwide transform logistics from cost centers into revenue generators. Many businesses have leveraged Locus to turn their logistics into growth engines, driving both efficiency and profitability.

Want to be one of them? Schedule a demo with us now!

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